Caelus Online

24. New Skills and Preparations

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[Astaria]

Class: Mage - Lv: 16 – 79.2%     [+6]

Race: ???

Gender: Female

Age: 20

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HP: 610/610

MP: 640/640

Fatigue: 14%

Hunger: 3%

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Skill Points: 141/421 - 60%     [+144/-145]  

Attribute Points: 0     [+30/-30]

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[Attributes]

VIT: 61     [+26]

STA: 19     [+6]

DEF: 16 (+1)     [+6]

STR: 26 (+4)     [+6]

AGI: 26 (+8)     [+6]

DEX: 16     [+6]

INT: 41 (+23)     [+6]

WIS: 81 (+34)     [+36]

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[Equipment]

Enchanted Mastercraft Steel Staff [Rare+]

(34 ATK) (WIS+10, INT+10)

Enchanted Mastercraft Steel Short Sword [Rare+]

(52 ATK) (WIS +15) (Sharpness+)

Frilled Blouse [Rare]

(WIS+4, INT+3)

Steel Bracers [Rare]

(WIS+5, STR+4)

Skinny Leather Trousers [Rare]

(AGI+4, INT+3)

Steel Plated Leather Boots [Rare]

(INT+5, AGI+4)

Black Hooded Ornate Robe [Rare]

(INT +2) (DEF +1)

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[Resistances]

(+ To Expand)

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Charisma: 10

Luck: 550

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Karma: 100,000

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[Skills]

Staff Lv 2

Short-sword Lv 2

Magic Arrow Lv 2

Fireball Lv 3     [+1]

--- Blast Lv1     [+1]

Lightning Lv 3     [+1]

--- Residual Burst Lv 1     [+1]

Earth spike Lv 3     [+1]

Freeze Lv 3     [+1]

--- Lingering Frost Lv1     [+1]

Evasion lv 3     [+1]

Mana Heart Lv 2     [+1]

Casting Lv 2     [+1]

Vitality Boost Lv 2     [+1]

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[Fame and Contribution]

Personal Fame: 16

The Temple: 330

Adventurers Guild: 380

Alennos Kingdom: 11

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[Titles]

-The First Immortal Warrior-

[Common Titles]

(+ To Expand)

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Looking at her status page Astaria decided that her magic damage would be the most important when fighting the boss, so she put her 30 new Attribute Points into WIS bringing it up to 81. Briefly glancing at her other attributes, she could see that all of her stats have gone up by 6 points each.

After Lv 10 players started to gain an Attribute Point in all types upon levelling up. It was likely that the reason that additional points were not given on the first 10 levels was due to the situation the Pinecone Viking encountered earlier. Players gaining 8 status points per level alongside the 5 free points would undoubtedly send more people into a strange state, especially if they level up multiple times after killing a strong enemy.

Taking a moment, Astaria’s curiosity took over and she wondered how much of an advantage she currently had over the rest of the players in terms of attributes. Going through her memories, she estimated the current average level was around Lv4, meaning that most players would have around 130 total attribute points. Meanwhile, she currently had 276, over double the regular players, and that was not including the additional 70 stat points added by her equipment.

Inwardly trying to control her incredible joy at this revelation, Astaria thought about how it wouldn’t take long for skilled players to enter the game and regular players to get used to fighting and quickly catch up. As her thoughts gave her a reality check, the internal excitement that was bubbling starting to calm down a little.

Returning her attention back to the screen in-front of her, Astaria looked at the available skills. Levelling up everything she could, she increased the level of her 4 elemental skills up to Lv3, unlocking their skill add-ons. She first chose to buy [Blast] which would allow her to make her fireball explode, knocking enemies caught by it down to the floor, as well as causing high damage.

[Blast Lv1]

[Causes the skill [Fireball] to explode upon contact.

MP cost: 15

Cast time: 0s

Cooldown: 10s

Damage: (WIS x 200%) + ((Main hand weapon attack + Sub weapon attack) x 50%)

Chance to inflict: {Knockdown} {Knockback} {Stun}]

Next Astaria acquired [Residual Lightning], a skill that causes a second smaller lightning bolt to strike a location of Astaria’s choosing, while also causing a small shockwave of lightning upon impact. This add-on also had the ability to knock enemies down as well as cause high amounts of damage.

[Residual Lightning]

[Creates a second unstable lightning bolt to strike a targeted location after the use of [Lightning]. Upon contact, the lightning bolt explodes causing a shockwave in a small radius.

MP cost: 30

Cast time: 0.5s

Cooldown: 10s

Damage: (WIS x 310%) + ((Main hand weapon attack + Sub weapon attack) x 120%)

Chance to inflict: {Knockdown} {Knockback} {Stun}]

Lastly, Astaria acquired [Lingering Frost], the addon for her [Freeze] skill, causing the target hit by [Freeze] to have their movement slowed by 5% for 5 seconds.

[Lingering Frost]

[Increases the effect of the skill [Freeze] and causes additional status ailments upon contact.

MP cost: 10

Cast time: 0s

Cooldown: 10s

Damage: (WIS x 20%) + ((Main hand weapon attack + Sub weapon attack) x 50%)

Additional Effects: Targets movement speed -5% for 5s]

After acquiring these skills, Astaria moved on to level up her [Evasion] skill which reduced the mana consumption per use, as well as levelling up [Vitality Boost] and [Casting] which increased her VIT by 20 points and reduced her casting speed by a further 5.5%.

With her status now fully updated, she could feel her internal mana quality improving. Within Caelus, players can feel a strange form of warmth whenever a spell is cast or a skill is used. The warmth was the flow of mana through the body as it was used, and this was applicable to all classes and not just magic casters.

Astaria, as with many others, concluded that this was the game getting players used to the feeling of mana and how it flowed within the body when using it before mana became usable in reality, in effect training the players. Having now travelled back to the past and meeting Fortuna, she was completely certain that the past speculation was the truth. 

Moving her thoughts back to the present, Astaria was quite happy that she helped Ash progress further than their planned target, certain that after killing the boss he would reach Lv 20.

Previously when making plans for when she entered Caelus Online, Astaria’s expectations were that her speed of killing would be much slower than it turned out to be. It had been over 3 years since she was last this low in level causing her perception to be off, making her estimation of their progress rough at best.

With her status updated, Astaria closed the window and leaned back against the tree behind her with closed eyes, resting for another half an hour with the background noise of her friends casually talking, eventually rousing to make the last preparations to fight the boss.

Since her fatigue value had reduced, Astaria’s worries about a prolonged fight subsided. She checked her inventory, confirming she still had 4 mana potions remaining then stood up to get everyone’s attention.

With a clap, Astaria brought everyone's attention to her standing figure as she began a final run-through of the coming boss fight.

“Right, before we head over to the boss, I want to confirm a few last details. Firstly, I will be running as the main tank and damage dealer. Russel, Tyrell, just in case, pay attention to me and be ready to step in as sub-tanks. I might need to take a moment to drink a potion, so you only need to hold out for at most 10 seconds.”

Seeing the two give nods in affirmation, Astaria looked towards Ash.

“Ash, you will be covering Roxanne and Ben if that happens, so stay alert.”

With his usual gesture of a thumbs up, Ash gave his confirmation.

“You guys will all be dealing with the add’s that will come to help the boss. They are Lv 15 goblins, and there should be a total of 20 of them. They will appear every time the Boss loses 25% of its health. The indication for this happening is the boss roaring, so make sure you move to the corner to not get surrounded.”

Pausing and looking at everyone who were paying close attention to her words, Astaria continued her briefing.

“I will help with some of my skills that hit multiple targets, so the pressure won’t be too high. If they are nicely grouped, I might be able to kill quite a few of them at once, so try to keep that in mind.”

Folding her arms Astaria smiled thinking about the unconfirmed information she was about to share.

“Last of all, the first time kill for a boss is always slightly different from the replacement bosses that spawn afterwards. Since not much was shared about this in the past, I sadly don’t know what we will get outside of a purple item that was announced last time in the server’s news feed. It may have had an increased drop chance or a confirmed drop chance since it was the first time, but that’s not something I know for sure.”

Hearing Astaria’s comment, the eyes of her friends lit up hearing the mention of purple grade equipment.

“There may be other loot like the purple equipment that is outside of the loot table I have given you for the regular boss, so this should be quite interesting.”

Hearing this, Russel expressed his enthusiasm with a massive grin, just barely visible in the moonlight filtering through the canopy.

“Man, I’m so ready for this fight, I can’t wait to give it a go! This is honestly so exciting compared to the other VR games!”

With a laugh, Tyrell also commented, sharing Russel's excitement.

“For real, this is going to be fun. Maybe painful, but I am still with you in excitement.”

Hearing the two, Astaria can only smile while remembering back when she was like them attempting her first boss in Caelus.

Flapping her robe around, Astaria freed the fabric from the stiffness of the dried blood that coated it, returning some of the mobility she lost while resting.

“Oh, who has the light stone I asked you guys to get?”

Tyrell, remembering he had the stone pulled it out of his bag and activated it.

The light stone was a type of crystal carved into a perfect sphere that when activated, produced a pale white light. It was an important item for fighting at night or moving around in the dark, especially when there was the chance to encounter wandering enemies. The stone lights up the surrounding area, allowing the user to clearly see the surroundings.

Accepting the stone from Tyrell, Astaria made her way toward the boss’s cave at the very centre of the forest. Luckily not encountering any wandering enemies, they quickly and safely arrived at one of the 5 entrances to the cave.

The cave entrance was quite large, easily able to fit four people walking shoulder to shoulder inside, flanked on both sides by crude braziers that clearly highlighted the entrance’s location.

Now in an area that had decent lighting from the two fires, Astaria put the light stone into her inventory causing the nearby area to become viably darker.

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